Council adopted Sunshine Coast Stadium Facility Development Plan 2015 – 2030 at its Ordinary Meeting on 10 December 2015.

Purpose

The Sunshine Coast Stadium Facility Development Plan 2015 – 2030 provides a long term vision (15 year horizon) for the site, identifying what it should look like and how it should function into the future. It considers the interrelationship between:

The current character and functionality of the landscape;

Public expectations and needs;

Emerging issues and trends; and

The realities of the economic, social, environmental and legislative context of the time.

The result is a plan that balances needs across a range of often conflicting interests.

Key Recommendations

Some of the key recommendations of the Sunshine Coast Stadium Facility Development Plan 2015-2030 are to provide:

Where to from here

Council does not have the capacity to solely finance the recommendations from the Sunshine Coast Stadium Facility Development Plan. The adoption of the Facility Development Plan will allow opportunities of joint partnerships to seek external funding in addition to Council’s Capital Works funding and Council’s Community Grants Program. This will be conducted in consultation with the affiliate groups, the community and council.

The adoption of the Facility Development Plan also provides council and the stakeholders with a sound base to lobby state and federal governments for funding assistance.

Overview

The Sunshine Coast Stadium (the Stadium) is a regional level sport, recreation and event facility catering for local, regional, national and international sporting events. The Stadium is located within the suburb of Bokarina on the Sunshine Coast. Sunshine Coast Stadium is home to a wide range of sporting groups including football (soccer), rugby league and rugby union. There are 14 formal user groups across the sports of football, rugby league, gridiron, rugby union and touch football with a number of these sports having their administrative hubs located on-site. The venue has been used by the Australian rugby union team, the Wallabies and the NRL Melbourne Storm team.

The Sunshine Coast Stadium - Facility Development Plan area includes the main stadium and sporting infrastructure (including fields) directly to the east of the Stadium (known collectively as the Eastern Fields Precinct).

Usage

The Sunshine Coast Stadium is a highly utilised facility. A study into the social and economic benefits of the site found that over 50,000 local residents attended or participated in regular sporting fixtures per year at the site, with an additional 82,000 people attending 20 major annual events. This is complemented by other regular usage for formal and informal training purposes. Overall, the Stadium generates approximately 3,000 - 4,000 visitations per week through regular usage.